By Rich Heidorn Jr.

President-elect Donald Trump last week selected a climate change skeptic as EPA administrator, while his transition team probed the Department of Energy’s climate research and sought ways for the department to aid struggling nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans quashed hopes for a bipartisan energy bill.

The big news in another whirlwind week was Trump’s selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a leader of the 29-state legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan, as EPA administrator.

Pruitt issued a statement through the transition team vowing to save the “billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations.”

“I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses,” he added.

In May, Pruitt coauthored an article in the National Review that said the science of global warming “is far from settled.”

The article also criticized the CPP, saying “this EPA regulation, one of the most ambitious ever proposed, will shutter coal-fired power plants, significantly increase the price of electricity for American consumers and enact by executive fiat the very same cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions that Congress has rejected.”

Oklahoma’s Energy Economy

Oklahoma would be required to cut carbon emissions from power plants by almost one-third under the CPP. About one-quarter of all jobs in the state rely directly or indirectly on the energy industry — mostly gas and oil.

In 2014, The New York Times reported that Pruitt had sent letters to EPA and other federal officials — on state government stationary and signed by him — that had been authored by oil and gas companies.

Environmental groups were aghast, but unsurprised, at Trump’s choice. The Sierra Club complained Pruitt’s appointment was tantamount to “putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires.”

Democrats vowed to oppose Pruitt’s confirmation, saying they hope to win support from some Republican senators. “This is going to be a litmus test for every member of the Senate who claims not to be a denier,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said on a call with reporters.

But Pruitt’s nomination will go through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, headed by fellow Oklahoman Jim Inhofe, who famously brought a snowball onto the Senate floor in 2015 to illustrate his skepticism of climate change.

‘Studying’ Paris Agreement

Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and vowed during the campaign to abandon the U.S.’s commitments under the Paris Agreement, said last month that he had an “open mind” on the subject. (See Trump Sends Conflicting Signals on Climate Change.)

In an interview with Fox News broadcast Sunday, Trump said he was still “studying” the agreement, saying he didn’t want it “to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries.”

“As you know, there are different times and different time limits on that agreement,” he said. “I don’t want that to give China or other countries signing agreements and advantage over us.”

If the CPP survives the court challenge, it will not be a simple matter to undo. “Mr. Pruitt and the incoming Trump administration cannot simply rely on their preferences or on baseless claims about science and markets,” Georgetown University Law professor William W. Buzbee wrote last week. “Decades of law, much of it created by conservatives’ judicial heroes, requires presidents and agencies to abide by the rule of law and justify regulatory reversals. They have to take a hard look at science and other underlying facts.”

Interior, DOE Candidates Emerge

Pruitt was just one of the energy-related appointments in the news last week.

Numerous reports said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) will be named head of the Interior Department. Trump has called for opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas development.

News reports that Trump has chosen ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state were dominated by questions over the executive’s ties to Russia. But the company also has figured prominently in the climate debate.

New York Attorney General Eric Schniederman is leading an investigation into the company for allegedly making misleading statements on the subject in the past. After Tillerson took over as chief executive in 2006, however, the company acknowledged the science behind climate change and expressed its support for a carbon tax and the Paris Agreement.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is Trump’s pick for energy secretary, CBS reported late Monday. The Department of Energy was one of three federal agencies Perry vowed to abolish — and the one he was unable to name during a debate in the 2012 presidential race.

Bloomberg reported that other finalists included Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Ray Washburne, CEO of Charter Holdings, a Dallas-based investment company with interests in real estate and restaurants.

DOE ‘Witch Hunt’?

Meanwhile, Trump’s transition team caused a stir by submitting to the Department of Energy a long questionnaire requesting the names of all employees involved in climate research.

The questionnaire “suggests the Trump administration plans a witch hunt for civil servants who’ve simply been doing their jobs,” the watchdog group Public Citizen said in a statement.

Other questions asked about the social cost of carbon and computer modeling scientists use to forecast future climate changes.

“My guess is that they’re trying to undermine the credibility of the science that DOE has produced, particularly in the field of climate science,” Stanford climate researcher Rob Jackson told The Washington Post.

Bloomberg News reported that the transition team also asked how the department can “support existing reactors to continue operating” and what it can do “to help prevent premature closure[s].” The team also asked about obstacles to resuming work on Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the proposed site for disposing spent nuclear fuel until the plan was nixed early in President Obama’s first term. (See related story, Entergy, Consumers Announce Closure of Palisades Nuke.)

Energy Bill Appears Dead

Last week also ended hopes for enacting the first comprehensive energy bill in almost a decade.

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that time had run out in the lame duck session to reach a compromise between House and Senate versions of the legislation. (See House, Senate Conferees Begin Work to Narrow Differences on Energy Bill.)

Bloomberg said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) had reached an agreement with Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) on a package, but House leaders had refused to move it.

“It’s just very frustrating to see Congress again fail to act on energy efficiency policies that have so much bipartisan political, business and public support and that would help so many people and businesses save money on their energy bills,” Alliance to Save Energy President Kateri Callahan said in a statement. “Caught up — this round — in the failure of conferees to produce a comprehensive energy bill, the very important, practical and bipartisan provisions of the Portman-Shaheen Energy Security and Industrial Competitiveness Act (ESICA) are left in the dust bin of yet another Congress.”